SEO Tips and Tricks: How to Create a SEO Friendly Site

This means that if your website is on the second, third, or 50th page of results…all the hard work you put into creating it likely isn’t going to pay off.

We know – this is frustrating. On top of everything else you have to do in a day, now you have to figure out how to beat the Google algorithm?

Relax. We’ve got the solution: Search Engine Optimization, AKA SEO. In this post, we’re telling you everything you need to know about how to use SEO to get your website on that coveted first page of results – and to grow your customer base.

Read on for our list of the top SEO tips and tricks that you need to blow your competition out of the water! Let’s make sure your target market finds your site, not theirs.

1. Start With Your Homepage

Your homepage is usually the biggest chance you have to make a great first impression on a user. It can help you turn a website visitor into a long-term client.

When you’re creating your homepage, it’s crucial that you’ve thought about an SEO strategy. Let’s take a look at some of the most popular homepage SEO tips and tricks now!

Make Branding a Central Focus

First, you want to make sure that visitors connect with your brand right out of the gate. This means that your homepage should include your logo, your contact information, and photos/text that reinforce the most central concepts of your brand.

Visitors will quickly make a choice about whether or not they connect with what you as a brand stand for.

Keep Navigation Simple

Your homepage should also make it incredibly easy and intuitive for visitors to travel through the rest of your website. Your menu options should be clearly listed at the top of your homepage.

Additionally, any images you include on your homepage should be linked to relevant products/services. Visitors just expect an image to lead them somewhere.

Include Headers

There’s nothing that will drive away a website visitor faster than a long block of text. The less time a user spends on your website – you guessed it – the further you fall in the rankings.

Headers also give you the chance to make navigation more intuitive, and to make multiple offers on your homepage. This increases your chances of more clicks.

Also, be sure to include…

2. Use Keywords

Keywords: the ultimate link between you and your customers, and second on our list of SEO tips and tricks.

Keywords are the words/phrases you type in a search engine when you’re looking for a specific product/service. They could be things like “best hair salon Las Vegas” or even “what is SEO”

When customers type in keywords, you want those keywords to lead them to your website. To make this happen, you need to include those same keywords in your content.

Those headers we talked about earlier? They’re a great place for keywords, too. So are your social media posts (more on that in a minute) and even your HTML!

Be sure to avoid keyword stuffing – AKA, writing “best hair salon Las Vegas” 40 times on your homepage. Not only is it just kind of embarrassing, but it will also cause you to fall in the rankings.

How can you find these keywords? Well, your professional digital marketing service should handle it. But if you’re taking a DIY approach, you can use a free keyword research tool.

Additionally, make sure you choose some keywords that also include your location (like the Las Vegas hair salon.) While “hair salon” might seem like a safe bet, keep in mind that these high-ranking keywords are going to be snatched up by bigger competitors.

3. Start Blogging

Did you know that websites that include a blog have a shocking 434% more indexed pages – which can lead to 434% more hits?

Before you run over to WordPress immediately, we want to make sure that you know how to incorporate some SEO tips and tricks into your content!

Your blog is one of the most important aspects of your website, especially because of the incredible opportunities it gives you to incorporate more SEO hacks into your site.

First of all, blogging alone will help your site to rise in the rankings. This is because each new post you make will tell Google that you’ve “updated” your site. Sites that are frequently updated rank higher in the search engine rankings.

Blogging also gives you the opportunity to put those keywords we talked about earlier into content other than just your website’s homepage and internal pages. More keywords = more hits. More hits = higher rankings!

When you’re blogging, be sure to vary both the topic and the forms of your posts. Remember, posts should be easy to digest, broken up with images, and actually informative.

This is your chance to review specific products, to establish yourself as an authority in your industry, and to connect with your target market.

Don’t miss out by creating long, rambling posts that nobody wants to read. Also, keep it simple. This isn’t AP English, it’s a blog post. Save the flowery language for your book club.

4. Focus on Loading Speed

This is one of the easiest – and most important – SEO tips and tricks out there!

Making sure that your website loads fast is crucial because this impacts your site’s “dwell time.” Dwell time is the amount of time people spend on your website.

The higher your dwell time, the higher you’ll rise in the search engine rankings.

5. Get On Social Media

Come on – you knew this was coming. Maybe you think social media is a waste of time, but it’s crucial when you want to grow your brand and get more visitors to your site.

When it comes to SEO tips and tricks for social media, there are many you’ll need to pay attention to!

First, always make sure you’re getting on multiple platforms: Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, even Snapchat. This is key because each platform contains a specific niche of your target market. As a result, you’ll need to tailor the content you share to meet the audience of each platform.

Also, be sure to share your blog posts and product pages on social media to get more clicks and earn you more followers! This will help you to rise in the rankings.

Always make the time to respond to your followers’ comments, messages, and even likes! Remember that social media is now considered as a part of your customer service plan. If you’d return a phone message a client left for you, why not a Facebook message asking about a shipment?

Finally, be sure to post often, and to use all the awesome tools social media makes available to you. This means things like Facebook Live, Instagram Stories, and more.

6. Cater to Mobile Users

This is one of our “quick and dirty’ SEO tips and tricks.

Keep in mind that lots of web visitors are now using their mobile devices to access your website just as often as they’re using desktop computers.

Quick tip: avoid pop-ups, especially ones that cover most of the content on a mobile page. Google is now looking for this, and excessive pop-ups will make you fall in the rankings.

7. Include Links in Your Content

There are two types of links: internal and external. They’re both important SEO tips and tricks.

Internal links are the pages of your own website that you link to by embedding them into your own content, or on the content you post on another site.

External links link readers to another relevant (not a competitor!) website when they are clicked on. For example, if you’re writing an article on used car parts, you might link to an article about how recycling car parts is good for the environment.

You wouldn’t link to a website that, like you, also sells used car parts. You also wouldn’t link to an article about puppies (as much as we would all love that.)

Linking can help you to improve your SEO score, but you’ll need to stay vigilant to make sure that past links aren’t removed or broken. It’s a good idea to always check on them from time to time.

Use These SEO Tips and Tricks to Make Your Website Soar to the Top

While we hope you found this list of SEO tips and tricks helpful, we know it probably also left you feeling a little overwhelmed.

As you can see, improving your SEO score and rising in the rankings requires a lot of initial work – and a lot of maintenance and updates. Sometimes, you just don’t have the time or the experience to do it on your own.

Luckily, we do.

Get in touch with us today to learn how we get your site on the first page, improve your links, get you targeted traffic, and more.